Walk With Shadows
by Arsosah
Summary: The accident changed everything. It changed dad, and suddenly our home wasn't a safe place anymore. Rewritten story, slightly AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Walk With Shadows**

 **1.**

Soda's leg is bouncing up and down. He's like that, always moving, never able to sit still. High of life. But this time he's jittery for another reason, a reason I don't want to think about but that is impossible not to here in the hospital's waiting room.

I have crawled into my sweater, dragged the hood over my head and crossed my arms over my stomach. I keep my neck bent and my gaze steady on my sneakers, wanting to hide from all the prying eyes around us. There is a tightness in my chest that makes me not really sure how to breathe. I take shallow breaths though slightly parted lips, all while trying to keep it together.

I'm scared. Scared of what the woman sitting in front of us wants. Scared that what they told us just an hour ago is true. It can't be. It just can't. But I know it is, even if it feels surreal, like a nightmare. I hope I will wake up soon and nothing has happened at all.

But the bruises on my body and Soda's busted up face tells the true story. That and all the pictures in my head.

"Do you have any relatives close by?" the woman asks us. Her voice is soft and gentle, and filled with concern. Like we're little kids she needs to be careful with. "Someone we can call for you?"

"Our brother," Soda says immediately. "Darry. He's in college. We have to call him anyway to tell him-" He stops, his voice breaking. I glance up and see the woman leaning forward, putting a hand on his shoulder while waiting for him to compose himself. When he does, he tells her which college Darry goes to, says he doesn't know the phone number but that maybe Mom has it written on a note in her purse. And then he starts sobbing again, not even trying to hide it.

xXx

 _Everything is silent. All sounds are gone. The radio. Mom and Dad talking. The screech from the wipers against the windscreen._

 _I blink in the black and gray world, trying to understand what just happened. My chest feels sore under the seat belt, rising and sinking while I breathe. The rain clatters against the roof, making patterns on the windows, glittering in the faint light of the only working headlight._

 _I see Dad slumped over the steering wheel._

 _I don't see Mom, even though I'm sitting right behind her._

xXx

We are left alone. I don't know if the woman went to call Darry, or if she left for another reason. But I'm glad she's gone.

"Ponyboy," Soda says quietly, holding an ice pack against his face. I don't want to look at him, and it's not because of the bruises. I have seen bruises before. I cross my arms a little harder, lean back a little more against the hard back of the chair I'm sitting on.

"Pony," he tries again. "Talk to me."

xXx

 _"Pony, are you okay?" Soda whispers frantically, suddenly by my side, tugging at my seat belt to get me free. "You hurt?"_

 _I breathe in and out, rapidly now. Where is Mom?_

 _"Can you move?" He talks close to my ear, sounding frightened. "Ponyboy, can you move?"_

 _I can't. My arms lie heavily in my lap. My legs won't work when I try to lift my feet. I don't know how to talk. Soda's eyes widen, and he says my name again, but I can't tell him that I'm okay. My tongue feels stuck in my mouth, and I taste blood._

 _"Dad!" Soda bursts out, but he doesn't get any answer from him, either. He turns around, squeezes his upper body between the front seats. "Dad!" he repeats, and he sounds real close to crying._

 _He doesn't call for Mom._

 _Seconds later he slumps_ _back next to me, his face pained and pale. "Oh shit," he says, breathing into his hands. "Fuck, shit, shit. I don't know-"_

 _"Soda?" I whimper._

 _He drops his hands, and I see that the left side of his face is bruised, blood trickling down his cheek from a cut up eyebrow. "You fuckin' scared me!" he exhales, but there is no relief in his voice._

 _"What happened?" I ask him, but I know. The headlights coming toward us. A car on the wrong side of the lane. Dad jerking the wheel to the right to get us out of danger. "What happened, Soda? Where is Mom?"_

 _"We have to get help," Soda says, ignoring my questions. Leaning over me, he struggles with the door to my side and manages to open it. "C'mon, Pony."_

 _I swing my legs over, put my feet on the ground but stop. The rain is coming down hard and I don't want to leave the car._

 _We were just going home, and I want to do that. Go home. That's all I want to do._

xXx

Soda rises suddenly. I close my eyes when I see Darry hurry past people and chairs to reach us, his hair messy and shirt disheveled. We saw him just a few hours ago, and then he didn't look like that. He was smiling all the time, showing us his dorm, letting us use his football inside his room and wrestle on his bed. He joked and laughed and you could tell he was happy and proud of managing to achieve his dreams. His last words when we had jumped into the car was that he would be home at Thanksgiving. But it's not Thanksgiving now, and he shouldn't be here yet.

And he ain't smiling anymore.

xXx

 _"Careful with the neck!"_

 _"Get a flashlight over here!"_

 _"David, can you-"_

 _"Hold on, I got it."_

 _"There's no pulse."_

 _"Sir, can you hear me? Sir?"_

xXx

"Did you see Dad?" Soda asks Darry, the two of them talking quietly beside me.

"No," Darry says. "They told me he's in surgery now. Did you see him?"

"They wouldn't let us." Soda takes a deep breath. "Did you... did you see Mom?"

"Not yet."

Soda sniffs. "...are you going to?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Shit, is this really happening?" Darry covers his mouth with his hands, looking so lost it scares me. He can't be lost, too.

xXx

 _I see the flashes of red and blue where I sit on the side of the road, hugging my knees. Soda is pacing in front of me. Back and forth, back and forth. The old couple in the car that stopped by tried to get us to sit in their back seat before, but he refused, so I did too. I don't even care about the rain anymore. I don't feel it, even though my clothes and the blanket draped over my shoulders are soaked. I shake and my teeth clatter and I'm real cold, but I don't feel it. I don't feel anything. Just numb._

 _"Boys?"_

 _The sound of Soda's sneakers stops._

 _"Come with me. We need to take you to the hospital."_

 _"I'm okay," I say into my arms. I don't want to move. I don't want to go to the hospital. I want this to never have happened._

 _Soda leans down and grabs my arm, and we follow the policeman to one of the ambulances that just arrived. A paramedic helps me up the stairs and sits me down, quickly starting to check me over, asking for my name and age and where I'm hurt. I answer in one word sentences, trying not to look at our car. Trying not to look as they lift out Dad and place him on a stretcher, putting a mask over his face._

 _Trying not to look when they bring out Mom._

xXx

Someone shakes my shoulder. I shake my head in response, covering my face with my arm.

"Pony, we need to go home."

"I don't wanna leave," I mumble, feeling hot and miserable. Somehow I fell asleep, curled up in the chair, despite the odd position and hospital sounds. "Not without Mom and Dad."

Darry drags a shaky breath, his hand still on my arm. "Pony, I... it's... they can't..."

"He _knows_ ," Soda says quietly behind him.

xXx

I don't remember the drive. I didn't fell asleep again, but I don't remember it. I sat in the front because I just couldn't sit in the back, and then there is nothing until I find myself in bed. I have all my clothes on, and my shoes, too, and I know Mom will go crazy over the dirt on the sheets.

I turn around and bump into Soda. He's lying in my bed, next to me, propped up on one elbow and watching me with red eyes. He bites his lip to stop it from quavering, and everything from last night comes back to me.

"Is Mom dead?" I ask him in a small voice. I know the answer. I know. It's like I suddenly get stabbed in my chest. I'm gasping for air as my lungs collapse, and I start sobbing, quietly first, then harder and harder. Soda grabs me, curling his arms around me and holds me tight.

"Yeah," he whispers into my ear. "She is."

* * *

I published this story for the first time several years ago, under the title "Family Breakdown", but it was pretty bad so I took it down. And then a little more than a year ago, I published the first chapter of the new version, but nothing else happened with it. So - I decided to start over again to get back on track. And this time, I really will finish it.

Please leave a review and tell me what you think!

And as I guess some of you know, English is NOT my native language, so please overlook my grammatical errors. Or even better - feel free to correct me! I can only learn if someone tells me when I do wrong. Thank you!

I don't own The Outsiders.


	2. Chapter 2

**Walk With Shadows**

 **2.**

My chest feels stuffed where I stand in the doorway to Darry's room, trying to take up all the space with my body. Like I could stop him. Like he wasn't already gone - like his room wasn't already empty since he packed all his stuff a month ago, when it still was okay for him to do it. When everyone was happy about it, and our parents were proud, and I thought, one day it will be me, too.

And I waved him off from the front porch, just like Mom and Dad and Soda, before we went inside and everything still felt normal.

But this time it's different. Five days of a difference I can't even grasp yet.

"You can't just _leave_ ," I tell Darry now, fighting back tears. "Dad _needs_ you!"

He doesn't turn around. He just keeps folding his sweaters and puts them in his bag, slowly but determined, but the way his shoulders sag I know my words affect him.

"He won't even leave his room! He doesn't go to work or nothing!"

Darry sighs, zips up his bag and finally turns around. "Give him time," he says. "He just... he needs some time."

I'm crying now. I feel close to hysteric, I don't know what to do, I just know I need to stop him.

"Don't go, Darry!"

His face turns pained. "I have to."

"No, you don't!" I want to stomp my foot like a little kid, instead I angrily wipe at my face with my sleeves, trying to calm down, to get my arguments straight, to give him another option, a better one. "You can stay here, you can-"

"Ponyboy!" he interrupts me. "I can't. I'm sorry." As he comes closer, I want to push him, hit him, anything. But I don't, I just stand there sobbing and hiccuping, feeling embarrassed about my tears and snot, but I can't help it. He's the one who has been taking care of it all, the house, the cleaning, the cooking, Dad, the funeral... I love Soda and Dad, but they don't manage anything right now. I'm scared to be alone. The way I miss Mom hurts so much, and I can't stand that Darry won't be here, too, when I need him.

He tries to hug me, but I duck away, into his room. If I can't stand in his way, maybe I can grab his bag, unpack his things-

"Pony," Darry tries again, grabbing my wrist as I start to tug at the bag's zipper. "Stop it."

"You stop it! You can go to college here, you don't need to go back! There's a lot of colleges in Tulsa, you just have to pick one-"

"I need to go back, you know that. I can't afford another college, I have my scholarship, the football team, my work... I can't afford to lose more time from any of it. Pony, listen to me, it will be okay! I promise!"

"It won't be okay! Mom is dead, how can it be okay?" I rip my arm out of his grip, screaming at him. "And you are just leaving us! I hate you!"

It's wrong to say that. I know that as soon as the words fly out, and I want to take them back when the pain in his eyes become almost unbearable. You don't say that to your brother when your mom died only five days ago. You don't say that at all when it's not true.

He says my name again, almost whispers it, but I dash past him, down the hallway to my own room, banging the door shut behind me.

xXx

I don't know how long time that has passed when someone knocks softly on the door. I bury my face deeper into my soaked pillow, not wanting to meet his eyes if it's Darry. No matter how ashamed I am, I'm still too angry at him. Guilt and sorrow have a war inside me, but I'm too tired to push any of them away. I let them both win.

"Pony, can I come in?" Not waiting for my answer, Soda opens the door. I hold my breath as he walks over the floor, feel the dip in the mattress as he sits down. He puts a hand on my shoulder, rubbing it gently. "You wanna come an' say goodbye to Darry?"

I sniff. It's hard to breath like this, but I don't care, choking out a "No."

"You sure? He wanna go before it gets too dark."

I mumble into the pillow.

"What?"

I turn my head a little. "He shouldn't go at all! We need him here!"

"Aw, Pony, don't be like this." Soda sounds real tired. "We'll make it on our own. You, me and Dad."

Not Mom. Never Mom again.

He rubs his hand a little harder as my sobs become heavier.

"I want Mom!" I cry.

I can sense how he swallows, trying to find words. "Yeah, me too," he says hoarsely. "But she won't come back, and it's no use for him to throw his life away."

"He wouldn't throw it away just 'cause he stayed!"

"He would, and you know it. He has been working hard for this, Pony. And it ain't like he's on the other side of the world, you know. He can come home if we need him. C'mon now, he won't go 'til we have said goodbye."

I let him tug me up, but as we walk out into the living room I keep hiding behind his back, staring at the floor as he hugs Darry, who's saying we can call him anytime, any hour of the day if we need to. I bite my lip to not lash out again, because I know it's not fair of me. He's right and Soda is right - him staying won't change anything. And I know Mom would have wanted him to go.

But even if I know all this, I can't look at him. I glance out the window, feeling a little relieved that it's not raining at least, but he will drive on _that_ road, past _that_ place - and my heart starts to beat faster, harder, hurting me.

"You call when you get there?" Soda asks anxiously, and maybe he thinks the same as I do.

"Yeah, of course," Darry confirms. He hugs Soda again, then leans past him to place a hand on my arm. "Bye, Pony," he says.

"Bye," I mumble, turning my face away.

xXx

I didn't think our house could become more quieter than it has been the last days. Me and Soda just stand there for a long time after Darry closed the front door. We listened to his car starting up, but now we don't listen to anything. It's so quiet my thoughts feel too loud, rumbling in my head.

I look around, like the living room is a living room I haven't seen before, and maybe I haven't. There never used to be dirty dishes on the coffee table when Mom was alive. Soda's t-shirt lies draped over the couch, his shoes kicked off in the middle of the floor because no one is here to pick them up and place them on his bed.

We look at each other.

"You hungry?" Soda asks me.

I'm not. But I say yes anyway.

I follow him to the kitchen, sitting down by the table as Soda opens the fridge. I wonder if this will still be my place. We used to be five, and I never really got used to be only four. And now... I kick at the chair standing opposite of mine under the table, watch it move backwards. Darry's chair.

Soda looks over his shoulder. "What about pancakes?"

"Okay."

He moves, somewhat insecure, between the cupboards and pantry, cracking eggs in a bowl. One, two, three, and then he stops.

"How many you think we need?" he wonders.

I shrug. "I don't know. Four, maybe?"

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Hm." He cracks one more. "So... what else?"

I search in my mind. I don't remember the last time I helped Mom making pancake batter. "Flour and milk."

"Only that?"

"I guess it should be sugar in it?"

"Yeah. Sugar." He nods at me, grabbing the bag from the pantry. A little more confident he pours the ingredients into the bowl and starts to whisk them.

I rub at my face. The tears have dried on my skin, and it itches. I almost wish I said I wasn't hungry when he asked, because all I want to do is go back to bed and sleep. Maybe I could sleep forever and wake up and everything would be normal again. If I could find a way to turn back the time and change it. Then I would have come right away when Mom said we had to go, not continued to wrestle with Soda, not listening to her. The accident wouldn't have happened if we hadn't stalled so much.

"Is it supposed to be lumps in it?" Soda asks me suddenly.

I clear my throat, blink away the new tears. "What lumps?"

"Look at it." He puts the bowl in front of me. "It's all lumpy."

"Whisk some more, then."

"I did but they won't go away."

"How much of everything did you put in it?"

"I didn't measure it. Should I have?" He glances down into the bowl again. "Maybe you could taste it."

"Why should _I_ taste it?"

"'Cause you know what it should taste like."

"No, I don't."

He pushes the bowl closer to me again. "You want pancakes or not?"

"Not!" I push it back, and something gleams in his eyes. The old Soda. The happy one that always made me smile with his mischievous acts. I feel it tug in the corners of my mouth, an odd feeling. I haven't smiled for five days, and I didn't think I could do it ever again. It makes me feel bad, and I take a breath, feel it hitch, because I can't sit here in Mom's kitchen and _smile._

Soda's own smile disappears when I shrink back, and he sits down in front of me.

"It's okay, you know," he says to me.

"What?" I mumble.

"You can smile. It's okay."

"It's just..." I run my fingers over the table top. "It feels wrong."

A sound from the hallway make us both turn our heads toward the doorway. Soda raises, and I quickly follow him.

"Dad?" Soda says, carefully.

I have a hard time seeing him. His face looks a lot worse than Soda's, with a broken nose and two black eyes. The cast on his arm peeks out from under his shirt sleeve, and he blinks slowly, like he just woke up. He probably did, though, because sleeping is all he has done since coming home from the hospital. The only time I have seen him for more than a few minutes was at the funeral, and then it seemed like he was barely there. Darry had to help him stand up and sit down in the right places, all he did was staring at the coffin, not saying a word to anyone.

"Dad," Soda says again. "You hungry? Me and Pony are making pancakes."

"Well I... yeah. Sure. I'm just..." He turns around as he speaks, and we watch him disappear into the bathroom and lock the door behind him.

I feel like crying again. I miss Mom, but I miss Dad, too. He used to be strong like Darry and chatty like Soda, but now he's just a shadow of himself.

* * *

Thank you so much for reading :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Walk With Shadows**

 **3.**

I think the nights are the worst. When I lie in my bed, unable to sleep, with my head full of thoughts and Mom's quilt draped over me. When the silence is too much to handle. The walls in our house are thin, and I used to hear Mom and Dad talking in the living room or the kitchen after sending me to bed. Now there is no one talking anymore. There is no one to send me to bed in time. Darry did it before he left. Soda don't. Dad definitely don't do it. And I know I could have liked it, the new freedom of taking care of myself, if there just had been another reason.

I grab the quilt's corner and clutch it hard, press it against my face, but it's not helping. It's making it worse. I haven't told nobody, but when I close my eyes I don't see my mom. I see her how she looked like when they had put her on the stretcher, with all the blood covering her and one open eye. It's not what I want to remember, but I can't forget it. I realize now that she was dead then, that the last time I saw her she wasn't alive anymore.

I can't forget that, and I can't sleep.

Slowly I push the quilt off me, putting my feet on the floor.

No, I have to stay here. I'm thirteen years old. I'm not a baby. What if he thinks that I'm acting like one? I raise and pad over the carpet to my door, then back to bed. Taking a deep breath, I turn around again, this time walking out into the hallway and to the door next to my room. It stands ajar, and I silently make my way through it.

"Soda?" I whisper. He's fast asleep on his stomach, so I nudge his arm until he finally opens his eyes.

"Pony?" he says, confused and tired. "'S it mornin'?" He lifts his head, turning it slightly to peer up at me.

"Can I sleep here?"

"What happened?" He props himself up on one elbow, frowning at me while saying, "You all right?" with worry in his voice.

"Can I sleep here?" I repeat, mumbling the words fast, like it would be less embarrassing to get them out quickly.

"You wanna sleep here?"

I'm glad that it's still dark, that he can't see my face properly. My breath hitches once, and I nearly turn around and go, I feel so stupid. But I just can't go back to my room.

He moves backwards toward the wall, making space for me. "Get in."

I don't hesitate. His mattress is warm as I stretch out my body, lying on my side so I can face him. "M'sorry," I mumble while he drapes his cover over us both.

"Nah, 'S okay," Soda reassures me. "Just try to sleep now, yeah?"

I nod and close my eyes, feeling a little bit safer.

xXx

"You gonna go back soon?" Steve asks Soda. He's sitting in the arm chair, feet propped up on the coffee table, dangling his hand over the armrest with a lit cigarette clamped between his fingers. Now and then be brings it up to his lips to take a drag, all the time watching me out of the corner of his eye.

I hold my breath, just waiting for it. He has never liked me, and he doesn't like me more now, when I won't leave Soda alone. When I need to be where he is all the time, even begging him to not leave the house, to stay at home with me. If he's gone everyone is gone, and I can't stand it.

And Steve hates that, of course. That's why they are here instead of hitting town. It's Saturday and they are babysitting a thirteen year old, in his eyes. He even told me that, when Soda was out of earshot. I'm just glad he doesn't know I have been sleeping in Soda's bed with him the last couple of nights.

"I guess," Soda answers his question. But he doesn't sound so sure. "Pony needs to go back, anyways."

"Why, me?" I say, sitting up a bit straighter. "You have to go back, too."

Steve smirks. "You don't even go to the same school, puppy boy. Or you plan to follow Soda around at Will Rogers, too? Good luck with that."

"Shut up, Steve," Soda says sharply. Then, gentler to me, "Don't worry about it, okay? I know what I'm doing."

I shrink back again, unsure of what he means. Even if I think I know, I didn't think he would dare to do it. Not when he knows what Mom always said, that she wanted to see us graduate. I bring a hand up to my mouth, starting to bite at my already too short nails. I know it's a childish thing to do, and when Steve grins wider when he notices it, I blush and drop my hand, looking away.

xXx

At supper that night, me and Soda are eating alone again. And we're eating pancakes again, because that's the only thing Soda can do except sandwiches.

I just poke in my stack with my fork, glancing at the doorway to see if Dad will show up. Soda knocked on his door fifteen minutes ago and told him food was ready, but he never shows and I don't know what he eats if he even eats at all. He doesn't go to work and he doesn't clean up. I think if Darry had seen our house he would come back to stay, and sometimes I think of calling him and telling him everything. I think it would be enough to tell him we haven't been to school at all, and he would come rushing. But I'm scared that he would be mad at me, that he would think I'm destroying his future because I'm not strong enough to handle my own.

I glance at Soda, who cuts his pancakes into tiny pieces before putting them into his mouth and chewing slowly. Suddenly he pushes his plate away.

"I hate pancakes," he groans. "Shit, but I miss Mom's food."

I drop my fork and stare down.

"Pony?"

"What?" I whisper.

"We need to talk about her."

No, we don't. Unable to say that, I shake my head.

"We do. She's still our mom."

I just meet him with silence.

"Maybe I should go and get pizza instead," Soda says, thankfully changing the subject, but I quickly lift my head, the panic rising in my chest at his suggestion.

"No!"

"It would sure be better than this."

"I don't want pizza. I'll eat the pancakes, okay? They're great. I'm gonna eat all of them." I shove a big piece into my mouth, just to show him. To make him stay.

Soda grins. "No, they ain't," he says. But then he picks up his fork, too.

xXx

"Shit, I never thought your house would look worse than mine," Dally says, lifting his foot to look under his boot after stepping on a dropped piece of pizza lying on the kitchen floor. Three days ago Soda didn't listen to me and went out to buy us dinner anyway. I hid in my room all while he was gone, silently praying he would come home again, counting the minutes, the seconds matching my rushing heartbeats and rapid breaths. I almost cried in relief when he came through the front door, but I made sure he didn't notice, just clung to the doorpost of my room, asking if he remembered to buy me a Pepsi and a pack of Kools.

Soda looks up from his hand of cards, eyes wide as he looks around. Like he's seeing the mess for the first time only because someone spoke up about it. Then he grimaces, his gaze finding mine. "We probably need to clean up a bit, yeah?"

I shrug at him. Maybe we do. The dishes are piled high, the floor is sticky, there are things just _everywhere_. But I guess I'm hoping the mess will wake up Dad, that one time when he steps out of that bedroom he will see it and... come back to normal. Or I want Darry to come home on a surprise visit, and realize we're not okay. Soda tells me every day it's gonna be okay, and Darry says it too every time he calls. But I can't see how.

Steve kicks Soda under the table. "You gonna raise or what?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." Soda picks up a quarter and throws it onto the pile of coins in the middle of the table top. Steve just rolls his eyes at the move, because Soda is not in the game anymore, obviously trying to figure something out. And it only takes a minute or two for him to throw his cards down, color up, Steve and Two-Bit groaning at that, and jumping up on his feet.

"Pony, take care of the laundry," he orders me.

"What, _now_?"

"Yeah, _now_." He starts to collect the dirty glasses from the table, putting them into the sink. Two-Bit quickly grabs his beer bottle, maybe afraid Soda will clean that up too, looking at him like he just lost his mind.

"Maybe you guys can help," Soda almost snaps at them.

No one moves, except Johnny, who quietly turns around, goes to the living room and starts to pick up the clothes strewn all over the place. I follow him there, and with arms full of t-shirts and jeans and socks we take them to the laundry room, dropping them into the machine. I close the lid and then look at it.

"How do you think it works?" I ask Johnny.

"You put soap in it and start it up," he says helpfully.

"But how?"

"Push the button?"

I bite my lip and nod. Opening the lid again, I grab the package of detergent and pour in a whole lot, because I figure the clothes must be real dirty, and more must be better. As the machine starts to move I suddenly realize this is my life now - that we will need to clean and wash and do the dishes every day, and learn how to cook if we don't always want pancakes or pizza. There are so much stuff to do with a home, and I don't even know where to start, I don't know how Mom did it. I don't know how to make it the right way.

I bend my neck and try to wipe at my eyes without Johnny seeing it, but of course he does, and he puts his hand on my arm.

"It's okay," he tells me quietly, I can barely hear him over the sound of the washing machine.

"Yeah," I sniff, but I'm lying.

* * *

 _Thank you so much for reading! Please take your time and leave a review, tell me what you think, I really appreciate that! :)_


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